“Everything that was labeled with these buzzwords were being rated healthier,” Northup said. “And so I think that’s the explanation is because you just link things like ‘anti-oxidant’ with ‘health,’ and even though we recognize that it’s on a Cherry 7-Up and there’s probably not something healthy about that, we still actually rate it healthier even though we’re not, like, consciously thinking about it.”

For the study, Northup surveyed more than 300 people who rated the perceived healthfulness of different products with the buzzwords and without them.

“The perception that you’re buying these foods that could be healthy makes people eat more,” she said, “because the thought behind it is that, well, it’s healthy, so it can’t be bad for you, so I can eat more of this healthy food. And the problem with that is then, it can lead to just overconsumption of food.”

Sharma also said that just because something is labeled “whole-grain,” for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is – unless it says “100 percent” whole-grain.

Northup said he hopes his study contributes to a dialogue about how food is marketed and that it helps consumers make the right decisions in the grocery store.